Sunday, 17 June 2012

EHCB (East Highland Concert Band) May Concert

Well the EHCB concert was a bundle of laughs. It was in this nice hall
in the middle of nowhere and of course, only family members came to see
us. Oh well, that’s not strictly true, Norman Bolton appeared which was
bizarre. When I got to the hall, I found out that we were going to play
our saxophone quartet where the last time we played it, it was shit. So I
was panicking that it was going to be a disaster. We shared the concert
with the Inverness Wind Band, and they were at least 10 times better
than we were. Plus one of my great friends from the Inverness band who I
also met at the music groups, I hadn’t seen since March time, but I
must have only seen him for 5 minutes tops so it was really annoying.
The hall was small and the balcony thing where we all placed our
instruments was crazy. There were about 100 of us to put all of our
equipment in a space the size of a janitor’s cupboard. Plus when we went
to watch the Inverness band, we had to stand on benches to actually see
the group and my feet really hurt. So when it was our turn, we played
our first piece which we usually play really well, a March, but our
intro was a complete car crash. And then of course, our quartet were
next in the programme. Let’s just say the tutor came in too early at one
point, our different sections in the piece sounded the same and don’t
get me started with my solo, it was iffy. Then came the flute players
with their piece, it was just the two of them playing which I thought
was really brave, it sounded great until one of them had her 2nd page of
music upside down, which left her in stitches. It was really funny,
poor girl though, must’ve been embarrassing! :O The brasses piece
sounded great and then we played Caprice which has to be the most
annoying part of music I have ever seen. I have the same phrase of
staccato notes for 3/4’s of the whole thing, so bloody annoying. Then it
was Viva la Vida with the Inverness band, which I now hate as I’ve
heard it so many times, it’s ridiculous and the music from Chicago which
we played at twice the speed we rehearsed, so it was almost another car
crash. But overall, I really like these concerts, the more experience
you get, the more you see the development in your performance, so maybe
one day will come where I’ll be performing somewhere incredible, like
Wembley! haha, keep dreaming, Eilidh. Anyway, I’m in a grumpy mood, it’s
11pm, and I’m going to try and see if I can get up tomorrow at a decent
time. To practise saxophone for 3 hours. 3 HOURS!!!! Which I seriously
need if I have any chance of passing this exam in 3 weeks. 3 WEEKS!!!! I
think you can see a pattern developing…… :P